


The Catalyst

by ThefirstRanger



Series: The King's Ranger [1]
Category: Ranger's Apprentice - John Flanagan
Genre: Araluen - Freeform, Book 3 - Ranger's Apprentice: The Icebound Land, Duncan is Halt, F/M, Gen, Place Swap AU, townspeople - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 17:15:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20567972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThefirstRanger/pseuds/ThefirstRanger
Summary: AU where Duncan is the famous ranger and Halt is the king of Araluen. Set during The Icebound Land, Duncan is upset at King Halt for refusing to send him to Skandia to save his apprentice, Cassandra, and it goes about as well as one could expect. Which is to say, not very well at all.





	The Catalyst

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place during The Icebound Land by John Flanagan in my Place Swap AU where Halt and Duncan, Will and Cassandra, Alyss and Horace, and several others all swap places with each other. 
> 
> This is my first RA fic and If you wanna follow me on Tumblr, thelastranger, there's more information on the AU and more pieces of it. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

The tension was growing thick in the tavern and had been for the past hour. Normally, there would be no immediate cause for concern as patrons who were causing trouble would be ejected from the dingy premises by either the tavern owner or by other patrons who had decided to take matters into their own hands. Tonight was different however. 

Tonight, business was scarce and the patrons already in the tavern were hesitant to leave despite the warning signs in the air. The reason for this tension was the blonde ranger drinking heavily in the corner. The ranger had already had at least nine fiery drinks and was starting in on his tenth while the bartender fervently prayed that no more trouble would occur.   
There had already been a fight between the ranger and a sailor, with the ranger easily putting down the large sailor in a matter of seconds. Rangers rarely ventured out to town while not on a mission and they never got drunk like the one in front of him currently was. His prayers were not answered. 

A tankard was slammed down, sloshing just the barest hint of beer onto the tabletop. “Fill it up again” came immediately after, barely slurring out of Duncan’s mouth. There was no doubt that he was well on his way to being black out drunk. As long as he passed out before he caused trouble, thought the bartender shooting a weary glance at his wife serving the few other customers. She mouthed back at him “What can you do?” and indeed, what could he do? Rangers were fierce fighters and had high authority in the kingdom of Araluen. To refuse to serve a ranger, especially a drunk ranger, was asking for trouble. Trouble the barkeep did not want, so he filled up the tankard with watered down beer. 

The trouble started after Duncan took a sip of the beer and grimaced. He could tell it was watered down, which was a sign that he needed to put the final part of his plan in action. He braced himself for the hardest thing he was ever going to do and started talking, taking care to enunciate his words so everyone in the tavern could hear them. There was no going back now.

“Have you heard that the good King Halt, ruler of all of Araluen, is a coward?” he said, addressing a terrified looking man across the room. “Because he is. I know for a fact that the all powerful king is a milksop. And he shaves himself with a saxe knife”. These words were treason and everyone listening knew it. Insulting the king was a crime normally, but for a respected ranger, someone who is a part of the king’s forces, it was high treason. The tension in the room was positively electric, but no one dared to move. The ranger’s longbow was leaning against the bar, ready to shoot an arrow at any given moment, ready to impale the first person out the door. They were trapped.

The back door swung open a bit as the bartender’s daughter walked in. She froze as soon as she heard the insults to the king and glanced worriedly at her mother and father. Her father motioned for her to go back into the storage room and her mother gestured to get the King’s Watch. Gulping, she backed out of the main room silently, except for when she bumped into a stack of cups that fell to the ground. In a flash, the ranger turned around and the girl fled out the door.

“What was that noise?” asked Duncan, suspiciously peering around. The barkeep sent up a silent prayer of thanks that the ranger was too drunk to notice his daughter slipping out to get the King’s Watch. Oddly enough, the barkeep thought he saw a quick flash of satisfaction on the ranger’s face, but he quickly dismissed the thought. No one answered the ranger and soon the ranger went back to outlandishly insulting the king, with insults ranging from the way he cuts his hair with a saxe knife to the infinitely more dangerous accusation that King Halt was the child of the late queen and a Hibernian vagabond poet and thus not fit for the throne.   
Though it seemed much longer, ten minutes later, the King’s Watch burst through the door, each carrying a short sword and thick club. The head corporal scanned the room and his eyes landed on the drunk ranger in the corner. 

“I heard someone’s been talking treason.” The ranger smiled up at him, hard and devoid of humor. 

“More people join the party! But who invited them, who has been telling tales of my treason? Someone who needs to be taught a lesson!” At this, the ranger swung up his deadly longbow and released an arrow, plunking into the wall. All the Watchmen reached for their weapons but before they could move, the ranger already had another arrow nocked and aimed at the corporal’s forehead. It gleamed in the torch light, reflecting the scared face of the corporal. 

He gulped. “Put the bow down,” but he had no authority over the ranger and they both knew it. There was nothing that could be done if the ranger decided to release his arrow. Rangers were highly trained killers, people who dabbled in magic if one believed the rumors. The corporal could certainly believe those rumors now. Despite his fear, he took a step forward. 

“Don’t take another step,” growled the ranger. The corporal steeled himself and took another step towards the rogue ranger. It was his sworn duty to protect the kingdom and he would until he took his last breath. His heart thumped. The ranger narrowed his eyes and all anyone heard was the twang of a bow being released.  
Both the ranger and the corporal staggered backwards, both expecting a different outcome. It took the corporal a second to realize the twang of the bow was from the bowstring snapping and not from release recoil. The ranger just stared pathetically at his broken bow as the Watchmen snapped out of their trances and descended on the blonde ranger. In the commotion, no one noticed the ranger slip a small knife into his robe. The blade was just the right size to sever a bowstring.

As the corporal was barking orders to the dogpile of blows being dealt, the bartender wondered how the ranger could have allowed himself to be caught unawares when all evening he had been so confident.


End file.
